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Credit: Faith Ninivaggi

Dawnn Jaffier

With a Hub teen arraigned today on murder and weapons charges in with the shooting death of an innocent school teacher at the Caribbean Carnival in Dorchester, police said they believe the killing may have been gang-related and they want the public’s help to find other potential suspects.

“This is a very active investigation; it’s ongoing,” Police Commissioner William B. Evans said at an afternoon press conference at police headquarters. “We don’t have all the information we need regarding other people involved.”

Keith Williams, 18, pleaded not guilty to murder and weapons charges in Dorchester District Court and was held without bail in the killing of Dawnn Jaffier, a bystander who was hit by a bullet Saturday on Blue Hill Avenue.

Williams was one of three people police said they saw running from the scene. Two of them were interviewed and released, while Williams was arrested, initially only on charges of unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition. The murder charge was added today.

Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley said investigators do not believe Jaffier, whom he called “exactly the kind of person we need more of,” was the intended target.

The 26-year-old health and fitness instructor at the K-5 James W. Hennigan Elementary School in Jamaica Plain had been due to return to the Hennigan today to begin preparing for the new school year.

“This senseless violence in the city of Boston has to stop,” said Mayor Martin J. Walsh, who visited Jaffier’s family this afternoon. “Her father said to me, ‘I don’t want the memory of my daughter to ever be forgotten.’”Jaffier majored in sociology at UMass Amherst and worked at the West End House Boys & Girls Club in Allston, City Year Boston and AmeriCorps before going to work at the Hennigan.

“All she did was help kids,” said Police Superintendent in Chief William G. Gross. “How ironic.”